The National Institute for Health & Care Research (NIHR) defines Patient & public involvement (PPI) as research being carried out with & by members of the public rather than to, about or for them. In my practice as a (live & non-live) illustrator, I have the opportunity to take part in PPI projects and turn them into “digestible” visual summaries for a more accessible dissemination. Capturing the words of people with lived experience through sketchnotes can enhance (often marginalised) voices that need to be heard as they provide precious qualitative data to the research team. The PPI link professionals, disproportionately represented by women and people from the global majority, are thus the bridge between the team leading the project and the community tasked to ensure that the research doesn’t become a one-way extractive exercise and widen the gap between the research organisation and the participants.
A recent study by Dr Stan Papoulias, PPI Research Team Lead at ARC South London, highlight the challenging conditions of the NIHR PPI workforce. They found that staff potential may be affected by a lack of recognition and poor understanding of their skillset. A receipt for disaster often leading to staff burnout and unrealistic demands to public participants, which in turn affects their trust in the research sector.
Dr Stan Papoulias commissioned me to turn their findings into a webcomic series published by NIHR, with the hope to facilitate conversations between researchers, public contributors, clinicians and PPI staff to enable a more empathic and sustainable relationship with the workforce. Find out more about this study here and read the webcomic series below and here.
